A Walk Through The Garden, 2008

"Fort Pella Pink"

I used to call this rose the "Hygiene Pepper-Scented Damask." She's obviously a damask, and the pepper scented leaves can wow you; but very few people know that "Hygiene" is the actual name of the town where I live. Before the town was called Hygiene (because of the Hygiene House Sanitarium around which the town sprang), it was known as Pella or Fort Pella. Oh well, might as well take advantage of a good Old West name.

This rose is everywhere. It is, so far as I can see, identical to 'Desirée Parmentier,' a rose which is known to have been brought to this area by the Pioneers. But I don't think it is that rose, for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, this rose grows wild all over the county. You would expect to find a cultivar next to a building or in a cemetery; but you don't expect to find it in the middle of a pasture, or in an irrigation ditch. Secondly, no matter where you find her, the "Fort Pella Pink" is the same rose in every detail. I am beginning to wonder whether or not she breeds true—something a cultivar is extremely unlikely to do.

Whatever she is, she is a remarkable rose. She grows to a little more than a meter tall both in the ditch and the garden. Her leaves are typical Damask leaves with a very strong, crushed-black-pepper scent. The flowers are about 9 cm in diameter, and the flower in the picture above had 151 petals. The color is hot pink, which slowly fades to silvery pearl on the outermost petals. The flowers are very long-lasting. There is a glorious, very strong fragrance of rose and pepper. She roots very easily from cuttings, and suckers profusely, generally into mounds about two by three meters if left uncontrolled. She survives cold, heat, drought and flood with equanimity.

If this rose does have one drawback, it is a tendency, especially late in the season, to proliferation.

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